This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

However, the nobles and the misled royal family were not satisfied with this range, so they kept increasing the requirements, eventually demanding that the range must exceed ten kilometers and that large-caliber, high-powered shells be fired, capable of causing fatal damage to any living creature within a radius of fifty meters of the impact point.

Compared to these outrageously high performance specifications, other "minor requirements," such as having a gilded emperor's portrait engraved on the cannon, are simply insignificant.

Alchemists were thus forced to upgrade their propellants from the less difficult-to-manufacture black powder to expensive alchemical powder, and to increase the caliber of their cannons so that they could fit larger projectiles.

However, the problem that followed was that the gun barrel was not strong enough, so when conventional metallurgical technology could not meet the requirements, they had to start enchanting the gun barrel.

However, enchanting increased the strength but also greatly reduced the lifespan of the metal, so in the end, they simply used cold iron, which was more expensive than gold.

The entire research and development process gives people the feeling of using expensive titanium alloy to create a "red cannon"!

Of course! But that's not the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is that after this modified Hongyi cannon was introduced, later developers, in order to cater to the preferences of their superiors, formed an incomprehensible path dependency (actually, it was just to save trouble), and ran wildly on the technology line of muzzle-loading cannons like a stray dog ​​with a prolapsed anus.

So, decades later, the main artillery of the Imperial Guard and the Border Legion is a "monstrosity" with a weight of 21 tons and a maximum range of 17 kilometers.

This thing is both powerful and outdated!

On the contrary, the development of individual light weapons, due to the involvement of the church, needed to be equipped for the exorcists under the church's jurisdiction. Therefore, it required lightness and portability. Although it inevitably took the wrong path of piling on materials, it was at least relatively more normal.

However, if we actually had a magic cannon, it could be used to cover the existence of ship girls like Belfast.

During the previous expedition to the wasteland, Dick revealed Belfast and her allies as a trump card. With the support of the ship girls' artillery fire, the enemy infantry dared not form dense square formations, and naturally could not effectively stop the cavalry's charge.

After the war, several lords tacitly helped Dick cover it up, but the thousands of troops had all seen it, and the news would inevitably spread sooner or later.

In the empire, swords and armor were a matter of nobility's dignity and were not prohibited from being privately possessed. However, this did not mean that local nobles could privately manufacture cannons, which was a first-class crime of treason.

However, in the northern regions of the empire, the mountains are high and the emperor is far away, so the imperial power is relatively weak. In addition, the centrifugal force brought about by the orc invasion has led to an unprecedented distrust of the central government among the northerners, forcing the northern lords to band together and try to strengthen their military capabilities.

After leaving the border legion's fortress, Dick made a detour to visit Earl Hoffmann on his way back.

When they reached the west bank of the Nye River, the city walls that had been built from ice had melted beyond recognition, and the locals were organizing people to dismantle them. However, while the remaining ice walls were being dismantled, another group of workers were building new brick walls along the river. Clearly, Hoffman was also preparing for the next war.

When it comes to Hoffman, Dick's initial impression of him was "a prominent warlord in the North" and "an ambitious tyrant," but now he looks more and more like "Yan Xishan from another world."

"Existence is everything, and everything is for the sake of existence!"

This man would do anything to preserve the territory that his Hoffmann family had inherited for generations.

After the war, the coalition forces, in disarray, disbanded on the spot, while the Northern Alliance rose to prominence, forming an alliance of eastern lords centered around Lagug. Upon learning of this, Hoffman swallowed his pride and personally went to Lagug to meet Dick, also wanting to join the Northern Alliance.

Dick didn't say he rejected him because of his previous sordid behavior, but he insisted on handling things officially and explained the Northern Union's charter to him in detail. It allowed Earl Hoffman's territory to become an "observer," but whether he could become a full second-level member would have to wait until the autumn conference a few months later for a vote.

Hoffman gave Dick a grand welcome. He had just planted the corn seeds he bought from Lagug this year, and owed Dick a large sum of money for the seeds. He would have to rely on the mineral resources in his territory this year to pay off the debt.

The saying goes, "The one who owes money is the boss," but there's a prerequisite: you have to have the ability to default on your debts. Hoffman clearly doesn't have that now, and Dick's elite troops are far too valiant!

After staying in Hoffmann's territory for two days, Dick returned to his loyal Lagug.

It was May, the height of spring planting in the north, with farmers busily working in the fields. Wherever Dick and his entourage passed, the people stopped what they were doing and rose to bow in respect. This was a necessary courtesy from the people to their lord, but it was also a genuine expression of their respect for Dick.

Dick observed for a moment and found that almost everyone working in the field was an adult, with only a few young-looking boys. He didn't see any minors who met the criteria for "school-aged children," which made Dick feel genuinely satisfied.

While other lords racked their brains to find ways to collect exorbitant taxes, Dick racked his brains to persuade people to send their children to school.

The development of the territory cannot remain a small-scale agricultural economy forever. As a transmigrator, Dick has always had a desire to pursue industrialization, so it is necessary to improve the basic cultural level of the population.

So, to encourage people to go to school, Dick tried many methods, including but not limited to having several government-run chicken farms boil most of the eggs and send them to schools as a free "supplementary meal" for students. Now, with the Church of Winter, Dick entrusted this task of "sending eggs to schools" to the nuns, which gave these supplementary eggs a sacred attribute, turning them into "holy eggs."

When Dick thinks of students, he can't help but think of Xiao Ai.

Xiao Ai is now Dick's formal apprentice. Unlike Hongye and Yuer, who only learn some low-level spells to assist in battle, she is seriously aiming to become a magician. She starts learning everything from the basics, and her talent is surprisingly good.

Even without the constraints of slave contracts, ordinary Earthlings are unable to learn magic because they lack the spiritual veins within their bodies for storing and circulating magical energy.

Although Xiao Ai is also an Earthling, the "Tawawa Universe" she comes from has supernatural beings such as gods and ghosts. After being enlightened by Dick, she replaced the restrictive slave contract with a dominating mark, thus possessing a half-demon physique and fully releasing her hidden potential.

So even though he started learning magic at the age of sixteen, which is considered quite late, he progressed very quickly thanks to his talent, diligence, and the personal instruction of Dick, the "youngest Saint-level master in history."

However, along with his talent, the child's true nature was also discovered.

Without a doubt, Xiao Ai is a succubus at heart, a lustful girl who, after tasting the sweetness of the forbidden fruit, became hopelessly addicted. Every time Dick gave her a lesson, Xiao Ai would call out "sensei" in a sweet voice, and then subtly flirt with Dick in her every move, tempting him to do something unethical in class.

But undeniably, Dick himself actually enjoyed it.

Back at the castle, Dick first wrote personal letters to his other allies, informing them that the fortress construction had been agreed upon and that they should try to begin construction before summer. Initially, they could build a simpler one, mainly for surveillance and early warning purposes.

After writing the letter, Dick went to the Ministry of the Interior office and routinely inquired about the situation of the territory during his visit with Ruby Eyes. He learned that everything was running smoothly and most projects were progressing faster than expected. Dick happily rewarded Ruby Eyes with a passionate kiss, and then, because his hands were not clean, he was chased out of the office with a blush on his face.

Although their relationship had made significant progress, Ruby Eyes' serious nature prevented her from accepting any inappropriate behavior during work hours. So, while she could still maintain her composure, she instructed Dick to find the girl on her day off and not interfere with her work.

To be honest, her puffed-up face was actually quite cute, which made Dick even more want to tease her.

So Dick secretly resolved that once Ruby Eyes was less busy, he would definitely find an opportunity to have sex with her in the office, and he would make sure she wore a white shirt, a tight-fitting short skirt, black stockings, and high heels. If she also wore a pair of rimless glasses, that would be even more perfect!

Thinking this, Dick turned his head and saw Joel, who perfectly matched the dress code.

"Yol, are you busy right now?"

"I was just about to take my lunch break, young master, you wanted to see me?"

"Okay, come with me."

A bewildered and clueless Joel was pulled into the empty tea room. Soon, the sounds of a man and a woman moaning in pleasure filled the air. People passing by in the corridor would quicken their pace and leave upon hearing the noise.

As the team grew larger, Dick was forced to become a master of time management. During the day, he had to handle government affairs that were no less than those of Ruby Eyes, and he also had to work non-stop at night, personally cheering on his hardworking and outstanding subordinates. On average, he slept less than two hours a day, and even during the day, he had to make full use of every spare moment.

In other words, the succubus's special constitution allows her to sustain herself through battle, which a pure-blooded human simply cannot withstand!

Inside the tea room, Joel, with his hands on the back of the sofa, stood on one leg in a very difficult pose, demonstrating amazing flexibility and balance.

This naive beauty had no idea that her new spring work outfit had completely hit Dick's sweet spot. She thought it was because she had been doing a great job recently and hadn't made any mistakes for a week, so she was being "rewarded," which made Joel quite happy.

Chapter 169: "Seasonal Illness"

May you grow up strong and healthy, my child.

"Thank you for the egg, Sister Sister."

"No need to thank me, this is the lord's kindness to you."

Inside the canteen of Lagug's first full-day school, Resentment and Chigante are distributing warm boiled eggs to the students in line. Compared to the rather lazy Chigante, Resentment seems more professional, always wearing a kind smile as he distributes the eggs and offers heartwarming blessings to the children.

The two nuns spend most of their time working at the school. In addition to distributing eggs, they also work part-time as general teachers. The Ice Temple is only open on weekends to receive believers for prayer.

Dick didn't want the religious atmosphere in his territory to be too strong. Since they were a Winter God cult, he simply stipulated in the church rules that no activities would be held in spring, summer, and autumn. A large-scale holy festival would be held after the first snowfall of winter. By then, the harvest season would be over, so it would just be a regional festival with religious elements, and maybe it could even boost consumption.

Soon, the eggs allocated according to the number of students were distributed. Because some students were on sick leave, there were three eggs left in the basket. Yuanqiu then made a point of inspecting the cafeteria to make sure that all the children had eaten their eggs properly before he was at ease.

When the government schools first started distributing eggs for free, some students were reluctant to eat them and wanted to take them home to their families. As a result, some scoundrels actually appeared near the school who were stealing students' eggs.

While the influx of a large population has brought development, it has also led to a certain degree of deterioration in local security in Laguge. After all, with an increase of over 100,000 people, especially after the snow melts in spring and the movement of people between different places is no longer restricted, Laguge has clearly created a "siphoning effect" on the surrounding areas. The population is still steadily increasing, but not all of those who come are honest and law-abiding citizens.

There are bad people among the masses; this is not a joke.

Since Dick had appointed him as a teacher, Yuanqiu was obliged to take good care of the students, because he sincerely hoped to be "used" by Dick more often in the days to come when they were together!

When Yuanqiu returned to Qigante's side after his inspection, he found his colleague yawning again. His colleague always seemed so listless and sleepy, which made Yuanqiu a little worried. Was Qigante suffering from acclimatization issues or something wrong with his health?

"Qigante sisters, did you not sleep well last night? Did you have insomnia?"

"Nothing, I was just engrossed in watching it~ Haha~!"

"?"

Feeling vaguely that something was wrong, Yuan Chou was about to press for more information when Qi Gante seemed to suddenly sense something and turned to look towards the cafeteria entrance. There, he saw a little girl with a gloomy face walk in. Yuan Chou immediately recognized her as one of the three children who had taken sick leave that day, named "Susan".

This name is the most common nickname for girls in the area, and it's as rustic as names like Cuihua or Yadan.

The girl lived on the outskirts of town and her family was not well-off. The reason she chose to go to school had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to learn knowledge to change her fate or serve the lord. It was purely for the free lunch and the complimentary eggs.

There are actually quite a few children like this in the school. Dick doesn't expect the children to have any lofty ambitions at this time; it's enough that they come to school first. Knowledge will help them broaden their horizons, and the education they receive at school will also subtly influence their thinking. These children, whose fates have been changed because of Lord Dick, will be Dick's most loyal supporters in the future.

The lord's kindness is something I can never repay in a lifetime!

Susan's parents had asked a classmate to call in sick for her for the whole day, but the girl felt a little better at noon and the memory of the eggs for lunch made her crave them, so she forced herself to come to school.

The little foodie breathed a slight sigh of relief when she saw that the cafeteria's food counters hadn't been cleared yet, but when she saw Yuan Chou looking at her with a loving smile, the girl couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.

“(Implacable) Sister Imbracap, I’m here for school.”

"Susan, are you feeling better?"

Knowing that Susan had come for the eggs, he didn't bring up his grudges. He served her a bowl of rice and then personally peeled the eggs and placed them on her plate.

Susan timidly took the plate, her big eyes practically shining as she stared at the freshly peeled egg, but just then, a tall shadow suddenly loomed over her.

Susan looked up and saw Sister Chigan standing in front of her. The little girl instinctively tensed up and stood up straight.

Like most of the children at school, Susan liked the gentle and kind Sister Grudge, but was afraid of the stern-faced Sister Gigantes. Although Gigantes was also very beautiful, she gave off a strong sense of oppression, making the students afraid to meet her eyes with her emerald green eyes.

This is mainly because Qi Gante is the school's director of academic affairs. When students were messing around during self-study classes, they would suddenly see half of Qi Gante's face peeking out of the back window of the classroom, which was a nightmare that many students could not shake off.

When Qi Gante suddenly stopped her, Susan's mind raced, trying to recall if she had done anything wrong. But apart from being greedy, she had always been an obedient and good child and couldn't remember making any mistakes, which only made her more nervous.

At this moment, Qi Gante raised his head and pressed it on Susan's crown. The little girl was so frightened that she almost had a heart attack, but suddenly she felt her body, which had been feeling unwell, lighten and her mind became much clearer. It was as if the discomfort had been taken away, and Susan regained her vitality in an instant.

Qi Gante withdrew his clenched hand and tilted his head, gesturing for Susan to find a place to eat.

"Thank you."

Susan felt like she had been granted a pardon and jogged to find an empty seat to eat, while Resentment came to Qi Gante's side, staring thoughtfully at her still tightly clenched hand.

"What is it?"

"Some unclean things."

Soon, Qigante's discovery was reported to the lord's mansion. When Dick learned of this, he and Ruby Eyes were reviewing the work reports of local villages and towns, which happened to be related to a matter they were discussing.

"Have even children in the city gotten this disease?"

Thanks to the established grassroots management system, although Dick may not be able to keep track of all matters and population status within his territory in real time, his overall control is far superior to that of those useless lords who only know how to eat, drink, and have fun in their own manors.

So when Chigan came to report that she had discovered a dark force suspected to be a curse on a student who was on sick leave, Dick quickly compiled the "number of people with illness" reports from other villages and towns. He was then shocked to find that there were more than 500 people with similar symptoms, and more than 90% of them were children. However, these patients were scattered, so the data in a single report would not seem very prominent. Locally, they just regarded it as a minor ailment that often occurred during seasonal changes.

However, Chigan did indeed extract dark power from the girl named Susan. This power was well hidden, but Chigan was a female executive of an evil organization, and the dark magic she used was actually very similar in nature, so she discovered it almost immediately.

Realizing the situation might be more serious than imagined, Dick immediately took it seriously. He asked Lucoa to accompany Qigant to visit the students who were on sick leave at nearby schools. If they were all cursed, it meant that this was not an isolated case, but someone was deliberately causing trouble. He would immediately activate the emergency plan and gather all the suspected patients from various places and hand them over to Qigant for treatment.

Chapter 170: The Illness is Called "Laziness"

Lucoa and Chigant brought Dick bad news shortly after visiting the students' homes. The children were all in the same boat; they had all been cursed by the same evil force.

Moreover, it's not just the children; their parents also have it, but the curse is still in its early stages and hasn't fully formed or started to exert its power yet, so adults with stronger constitutions don't feel it very clearly.

This made Dick realize that the actual number of victims within the territory was probably far greater than he had imagined. Many of the infected adults were simply not yet showing symptoms, and he could not simply rely on the territory's medical system to identify all those who were cursed.

The immediate priority is to analyze the type of "curse" in order to find an effective way to break it.

Unlike magic, which is systematic and rigorous in its spell structure, curses are a branch of sorcery, and their concepts are relatively complex and chaotic.

Leaving aside common tricks and scams, truly powerful curses usually require the help of divine or demonic power to inflict "true damage" on specific individuals or groups, including but not limited to instant death, permanent disability, mental breakdown, and failure to obtain desired items from gacha pulls.

A slightly less severe curse is achieved through resentment or a vengeful spirit with a certain level of intelligence. In order to achieve a destructive effect, certain special conditions are often required for it to work.

It is worth mentioning that the reason why succubi are "innately curse-removing holy bodies" is because sexual magic can absorb all negative energy, including resentment.

To put it simply, conventional methods of dispelling curses are like trying to catch fish with your bare hands in a murky puddle (by catching vengeful spirits), while sex magic is like a high-powered water pump that drains the pond to catch all the fish, leaving no room for compromise!

Squeeze everything out, and it will naturally become clean.

But the problem now is that there are conservatively estimated to be several hundred people in the territory who are cursed, and this curse is as contagious as a virus. The victims are men and women, young and old. We can't just call them all over and have sex with them indiscriminately, can we?

That makes him such a monstrous lord!

It is currently known that this curse is a secondary vengeful spirit curse, rather than a high-level divine or demonic curse, but it is contagious and extremely difficult to conceal.

Qi Gan is able to sense the existence of the curse because resentment itself is a form of dark power, and she is particularly sensitive to it. Lucoa can also sense it, but needs to be within ten meters, because the curse is still very weak in its early stages, and the resentment is hidden in the negative energy generated by the cursed person's own emotions, using it as cover while eroding the victim's spirit and strengthening itself.

If the person under the curse always looked dejected and tired, it would be even less likely to attract the attention of others around them.

Imagine a student who always seems listless. Most people would just think that the child must study very hard, rather than suspecting that he is under some strange curse.

Dick was quite knowledgeable about curses, mainly because back when he was studying at the magic academy, there were always some unscrupulous students who thought that instead of improving themselves, they would trip up others. So they would use their knowledge or hire people to cast curses on other students, hoping to make their competitors do poorly on the exams.

Dick, as an unloved illegitimate son of the Duke's family and a mixed-race child with impure blood, was already severely discriminated against by others. However, because of his talent and hard work, he was accepted into the academy's famous Archmage Grandor, which naturally made him even more envied. Therefore, there were many people who wanted to harm him, including some of his half-siblings.

It was around that time that Dick gradually discovered that he seemed to have an absurdly strong resistance to curses. So he secretly found a potion to test his bloodline and discovered that he actually had a quarter succubus blood.

Qi Gan has the unique ability to absorb the curses on her victims, but she can only transfer them and not dispel them, so she herself became Dick's research subject.

Perhaps because the curse's resentment was still weak in the early stages, and because Kigante, as a "darkened magical girl," possessed considerable resistance, she didn't feel any obvious physical or mental discomfort even after absorbing the power of more than a dozen people.